Kim Davis Denied This Guy a Marriage License, and Now He’s Running for Her Job

David Ermold (pictured above left), a gay man who was denied a same-sex marriage license by infamous Rowan County clerk Kim Davis, has officially announced that he will run against Davis in the next election. He will run against her on the Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2018 elections and will face Davis and three other candidates.

How Kim Davis and David Ermold first clashed

You may recall that on July 7, 2015, nearly two weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing marriage equality nationwide, Ermold and his fiancé David Moore (a man he had been in a relationship with for around two decades) went to the county clerk’s office in Rowan County, Kentucky to get a marriage license and — lo and behold — Davis, the thrice-divorced Christian clerk behind the counter refused to give them a license. She later said she was acting “under God’s authority.”

Emron recorded video of the encounter as well as a follow-up video and his videos quickly went viral. Davis later became a darling of the Christian right after she refused to follow a court order to issue licenses and went to jail on Friday, Sept. 4, 2015.

Emron and Moore married in October 2015.

David Ermold accused Davis’ office of nepotism

In his official announcement to run for office, Emron said:

I am running to restore the confidence of the people in our clerk’s office and because I believe that the leaders of our community should act with integrity and fairness, and they should put the needs of their constituents first. My commitment to Rowan County is to restore professional leadership, fairness, and responsibility to the clerk’s office.

The county clerk’s office has been in the hands of the same family for almost 35 years… But everyone should have a fair shot, it should not be something that’s handed down from mother to daughter and from daughter to son.

Ermold is 43 years old, teaches English at the University of Pikeville and directs a local gay rights organization called Morehead Pride.

David Ermold’s opponent has become a personification of Christian homophobia

Upon Davis’ eventual release from jail five days after her 2015 imprisonment, she became the darling of the Christian right, appearing at a press conference with anti-LGBTQ Republican politicians Mike Huckabee and Ted Cruz. The case was resolved when her deputy started issuing licenses and the state of Kentucky later created an alternate license that no longer required a county clerk’s signature.